Case studies

The publication of the Punishing Abuse report in the West Midlands sparked Coventry Youth Justice Service to think about how to take a whole family approach to supporting young people involved in the criminal justice system, in recognition of the fact that families and wider networks are a key factor in reducing reoffending and meeting young people’s underlying needs.

Cheshire Youth Justice Service have focussed on addressing young people’s unmet health needs to tackle reoffending. The creation of the Cheshire-wide youth justice partnership in 2017 highlighted inequalities in justice-involved children’s health provision, which they have worked to address, and are now taking an innovative social prescribing approach to meet the wider health needs of their youth justice cohort.

Four youth offending services across Avon and Somerset are taking a different approach to supporting young people displaying high risk and high vulnerability. They are working in partnership with their Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service and using a psychologically-informed approach that takes a longitudinal view of a child’s life experiences to understand their current needs.

Swindon combined a case formulation approach with a focus on identity and its link to offending, to promote interventions with young people which moved away from ‘managing risk’ to supporting them to develop a pro-social identity which naturally shifted them away from risk and offending behaviour.

Leeds City Council has a clear focus on the social care workforce, its aim is to support the social care workforce to have the best skills, founded upon high quality research and evidence that improves the health and wellbeing of the people of Leeds. In order to deliver an effective, skilled social care workforce in Leeds, the DASS has invested in the organisational and workforce development team to deliver a range of services.

Bath & North East Somerset is a small unitary district with just over 196,000 residents. Rising demand for support such as food banks and debt advice has shown that local people are being affected by the cost of living. The council has taken the approach to work with local trusted organisations to engage with people who have experience of food insecurity.

Vending machines offering free sexual health tests are offering alternative way to access HIV and STI testing kits in an effort to reach groups who may traditionally face stigma accessing these services.

Since 2018, Coventry City Council has commissioned an integrated lifestyle service for adults offering support for smoking, weight management, physical inactivity and non-dependent alcohol misuse.

Durham County Council and the Tobacco Control Alliance seek to support local smokers to quit while also promoting the conditions that incentivise quitting and prevent smoking uptake.

The Essex Wellbeing Service offers eight weeks of behavioural support in person, by video, or over the phone to any smoker over the age of 12 who lives in the county.